michigan

CALUMET, Mich. — Sunbury Press has released My Brother’s Mountain, John Timmerman’s historical young adult novel about life in Calumet, Michigan in 1913 during tense economic times.

About the Book:
Davey O’Brien and his friends are just trying to get through seventh grade at the Calumet & Hecla school for miners’ children. But trouble won’t leave them alone. Conflict with the “townies”, sons and daughters of mine bosses and store owners, is one thing. But then the miners go on strike, food becomes scarce during awful winter storms, and life itself grows uncertain as the miners square off against the owners’ vigilante thugs.

Excerpt:September 24, 1912

I had put my life in the hands of a madman.

He stood beside me, carrot-colored hair tangled up in curls like a nest of snakes. His shoulders stretched the shirt and sweater to the point of bursting. “And remember. Not a word of this to anyone. Ever,” he said.

His name was Robert O’Brien, and he’s my brother. I can’t deny it. Even though I have dark hair and dark blue eyes instead of green. I was skinny as a birch sapling, and about half as strong. I couldn’t see worth anything either. Right now I felt positively weak and half blind.

“Ready, Davey?” Robert asked. “It’s not going to be daylight forever.”

Rough caskets for victims of the Italian Hall disaster

“I’m coming,” I said.

I was on my knees getting a drink at the creek. All around me were footprints of animals that had crept down the forest trail during the night. The deer prints were the deepest—the big does more cautious, the small fawn prints dotted all around like dizzy sailors.

I felt like one of those fawns, spindly-legged and trembly.

My mistake was the way I leaned down to get a quick drink from the creek before I followed Robert the rest of the way up the trail. I saw Mount Baldy perfectly reflected in the water, ready for me to climb.

I didn’t want to do it. But Robert stood beside me like an oak tree with curly orange leaves daring me to go back down the trail.

“Come on. Don’t sit there guzzling water or you’ll never make it up.”

I wasn’t guzzling. I was staring at the upside-down reflection of Mount Baldy and was thinking that I really, really didn’t need to be a King of the Mountain.

At least not yet. That thing was a monster.

But, this would be my only chance this year. Snow could start any day. I mean heavy snow. And it wouldn’t be gone until May. By then Robert would have turned eighteen, left school, and gone to work in the mines.

I stood up. “Okay,” I said.

He looked at me. “This first part is easy,” he said. “Just an uphill walk. But you have to learn the trail. That’s your job.”

“All right. I hear you.” I hate it when a big brother sounds like a big brother.

“And remember,” he said, “I show you once. If you can’t remember, you don’t deserve to be a King of the Mountain. Brother or not.”

This was the thing. There was only one way to learn the trail. Someone had to lead you, showing all the weird markings used to point the way. If you failed, you were cast out of The Kings forever. You had one chance.

I had known that sooner or later Robert would take me. I was just hoping it would be later. Much later. Like four or five years later when maybe I’d have more than two pounds of muscle in my body and a set of glasses good enough to keep me from bumping into trees and tripping over acorns.

So here we were—working our way along the forest trail to the ledge. The trail started heading up more sharply. My feet kept slipping, and I kept grabbing onto tree trunks to keep my balance. At one point my feet just slid out from under me on a patch of leaves and loose stones. Splat! Right on my face and a wicked little cut on the palm of one hand. Where the trees began to thin out, the wind slanted in from Lake Superior and drove things like icicles right down my throat into my stomach. My fingers were turning blue-white. Big old Robert just kept stalking along ahead of me, as if the whole world wasn’t about to turn to ice. I wish he would fall or something, just to prove he’s not such a big shot.

Fall only about four or five feet, of course. He still had to get me back down. I kept climbing as fast as I could just to stay warm.

I felt like I had been climbing for three days straight. I was sucking at the cold wind to catch my breath. I looked up to see how far I had to go. A long shelf of rock hung out above us.

“Are we at the top?” I asked.

About the Author:
John Timmerman is a former college professor and the author of many books and short stories. He lives with his wife in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. — Sunbury Press has released Women Who Changed the World: The Journey and the Joy, a compilation about important women by students from the Crankbrook Schools.

A talented group of 8th grade female student authors from the Cranbrook Schools, guided by three editors, collaborated in what they called “The Cranbrook Project,” to create a book of brief biographies about important women who have achieved great things in their lives. The girls wrote about the following women:

Dr. Sue Carter

Mamatha Chamarthi

Mildred Dresselhaus

Katharine Hayhoe

Justice Bridget McCormack

Justice Maura Corrigan

Lou Anna K. Simon

Dr. Xiangqun Zeng

Lynn Povich

Arlyce Seibert

Kym Worthy

Florine Mark

About the Cranbrook Schools:
The Campus
Cranbrook Schools is located on a beautiful 319-acre campus, known as one of the masterpieces of American architecture. In 1989, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark, an honor accorded only two other independent schools in the United States. Sharing the grounds with the Schools are the Cranbrook Academy of Art and Museum (1932) and the Cranbrook Institute of Science (1930), both considered preeminent in their fields. Cranbrook House, the home of our founders George and Ellen Booth, is surrounded by 40 acres of gardens, lawns, and woodlands.

Facilities and Buildings
School buildings include Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School – Cranbrook Campus and Kingswood Campus, Cranbrook Kingswood Middle School for Girls – Kingswood, Cranbrook Kingswood Middle School for Boys, Cranbrook Lower School Brookside, and the Vlasic Early Childhood Center. Other buildings include Lerchen Hall (the Schools’ performing arts center), Wallace Ice Arena, and the Williams Natatorium.

Student Body
For the 2014-2015 academic year, Cranbrook Schools enrolled 1659 students as follows: 504 in the Lower School, 351 in the Middle Schools, and 804 in the Upper School, 255 of whom are boarders. These students came from 16 states and 20 countries, reflecting a diversity of races, ethnic origins, and religious beliefs.

Academic Program
The school year, from September to June, is divided into semesters in the Lower and Upper Schools and trimesters in the Middle School. The Schools observe Thanksgiving break, winter and spring vacations, and national holidays.

The program at Cranbrook Lower School Brookside and the Vlasic Early Childhood Center has been carefully developed to introduce children to academic skills in a positive learning environment. The focus is on strong academics and a balance of fine arts in a liberal arts education. The single-sex program on separate campuses in the middle schools accommodates the specific physical, emotional, and learning differences between boys and girls in the adolescent years.

Recognized nationally for academic excellence, Cranbrook Kingswood Upper School has been named an Exemplary School by the U.S. Department of Education. The curriculum is college preparatory, offering a broad selection of courses.

About the Book:
Having recovered from wounds received in Afghanistan, Joe Little Deer returns to the pristine woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. His aims are simple—to live at peace and work at the timber business he inherited from his father. Peace is short-lived when FBI Agent Mary Shannon enlists his aid against highly complex criminal enterprise in the north woods.

Agent Shannon is from Chicago, and she seeks Joe’s help based only on his heroic military record as a sniper. In fact, when she first meets him she is disappointed. A tad under six feet, long hair as black as crow feathers, wearing a battered leather jacket, Joe Little Deer seems like just one more north woods lowlife, hardly up to the challenges Mary Shannon foresees. He’d surely never make the FBI.

Surrounded by an oddball cast of characters, Shannon and Little Deer discover the heart of evil, and try to eradicate it.

About the Author:
John Timmerman is a Vietnam veteran, decorated with the Bronze Star medal. His jobs have included college teaching, house painting, and work as a Teamster. He has previously published four fantasy novels and over 20 books of nonfiction. From his home in Michigan, he is currently working on a second Joe Little Deer and Mary Shannon book.